Blood's Awakening 05/26/2023 session recap

♣ Blood's Awakening: the party
♣ Blood's Awakening recap - part 1 - part 2 - part 3
♣ Previous session - Next session

• The party defeats the summoned air elementals.
• They keep exploring the house, dispelling a lot of traps and discovering hidden doors.
• They find a Handy Haversack hidden in the study: the backpack contains more than one hundred erotic books! Caliban, Celio, Vittorio and Edna are both intrigued by the books and very much amused, while Winter and Serpico are much more indifferent. Polvere is visibly distressed.
• Caliban and Vittorio ask Polvere what’s wrong, and Polvere shares his strict upbringing, which made him extremely uncomfortable when sex is brought up. Caliban and Vittorio are sorry that such a natural part of life was kept from him, and Polvere retorts that it’s not part of his life, and it’ll never be. (bombastic side eye)
• Exploring the bathroom, the party finds a magic glyph hidden behind a painting. Caliban examines it and understands that, by activating it, the glyph disables the house’s magic defenses. Yay, mission accomplished!
• The party still wants to make sure that the house is safe. They find one last magic defense in the bedroom: it’s inside a wardrobe. Caliban opens it using Unseen Servant, but a strong wave of necrotic energy hits him.
  Winter sees Caliban hurt and it acts instinctively: it extends its hand to help Caliban and all of a sudden emits a beam of healing light, curing him.
• First reaction: shock. Winter never had healing magic, so what just happened shouldn’t be possible. Everybody starts asking questions, but Winter has no idea how it happened.
• The party looks inside the wardrobe and learns why it was still protected by magic: the clothes are beautiful, enchanted and extremely pricey. Caliban, Celio, Vittorio and Edna, being a bunch of fashionistas, are very interested.
• As a precaution for the future, Vittorio uses the Hat of Disguise that was inside the wardrobe to show the party Aidan’s appearance the last time they saw each other, just before they had that violent fight which led to Vittorio being estranged from his old adventuring party, The Borlotto Company. Despite not really wanting to, he remembers him perfectly.
• Having completed the quest, the party returns to Rosa, the quest giver: after some negotiating, they manage to keep everything they found with the exception of a Cloak of Many Fashions.
• The party travels back to Lexiapolis, where they agree on taking a break from adventures. They’ll be back a month from now, looking for new quests together.

DOWNTIME!

• Vittorio learns how to speak Thieves’ Cant thanks to Montini’s help.
• Serpico and Polvere travel together in the Lexian province, and it’s all very cute and cozy. They keep in touch with The Rose of Winds through the Sending spell, and one day, spotting Caliban’s Galder’s Tower in a field, they spend an afternoon together with the party.
• Polvere catches up with his father too with Sending. Colamasso is still in Cales, in the Calantria province, up in the northern region of Altia.
• Edna and Vittorio talk about their feelings: Vittorio doesn’t feel ready for a relationship. Since he needs time to heal, they stop sleeping together and Edna finds another place to stay, but the two still remain friends.
• Celio, Caliban and Vittorio have a boys only holiday in Olvia, where they give Anducar the Bag of Holding to store the phylactery away. They open up with each other, and when they come back a couple of days later they’re much more united (both physically 👀🍆🍆🍆 and spiritually).
• The party reunites to celebrate Celio’s birthday on November 2nd. It’s been five years since Celio last had a birthday party and he receives many meaningful gifts from his friends, the most important one being from Caliban: a ring that summons a beautiful black cat familiar, which Celio loves and calls Morgana.
• Winter, Vittorio, Celio, Edna and Caliban all train together, honing their skills: Vittorio helps Caliban and Edna with some weapon training while Celio and Caliban help Winter with its new magic powers.
• Using the Hat of Disguise, Winter shows how Corrado looked when it last saw him: he’s a big burly human man with a black beard.
• On November 9th, reading a local newspaper, the party learns that Azraloth, Anducar’s mother, made her presence known in the nearby province, Latavium.
• Winter tries to understand who (or what) might be the entity that gave it these new powers, but unfortunately it has no clue.
• Edna composes some new songs and epic ballads about their adventures. She bonds with Caliban, who improves his flute skills thanks to Edna’s help.
• Vittorio meets with the deserters in Ponte dei Corvi and gives them the money he promised months ago.
• Serpico and Polvere's bond got stronger. Travelling together, only having each other's company,  they have no distractions and their feelings for each other can't help but surface: on November 22nd, just one day before reuniting with The Rose of Winds, Serpico and Polvere begin dating.